In the world of technology and design, it’s not unusual for rookies to take on side projects while working full-time for an employer. As a former graphic designer (turned law student), I used to take on freelance work in order to grow my portfolio and make a little extra money, so that I could eventually freelance full-time. Although the practice made for long days, it gave me a confidence and drive that my regular 9-5 didn’t. Unfortunately, law students in BC with a passion for legal tech aren’t able to take on side gigs while articling, even though many of them are in desperate need of extra money and experience in legal tech.

The Law Society of BC doesn’t allow for employment outside of articles unless the student has their principal’s consent, the work can be done outside of normal office hours and not interfere with the student’s articles and the Law Society approves. In practice, approval rarely happens and articling work hours are often so long –  the concept of “normal” office hours is unknown to students.

Recently, a Resolution was passed by the Law Society of BC to provide articling students worker protections – including minimum wages and paid overtime. If this comes into practice, there is no guarantee that students will work less grueling hours, but there is a chance that the threat of overtime pay might entice firms to keep student hours closer to normal office hours. That said, students might actually have the time to take on side projects on evenings and weekends.

TRU Law’s Designing Legal Expert Systems class teaches students how to write for, plan and design no-code apps for the legal industry. These apps can be and are used by legal departments, law firms and organizations to increase productivity, free up resources, make the justice system more accessible and find new business opportunities (amongst other benefits) and are created using the Neota Logic platform. TRU Law was the first law school in Canada to offer this kind of class, but amazing schools like Georgetown University, Melbourne University and the University of Limerick also work with Neota to offer similar classes.

In the past, students have taken on paid side jobs during the school year, using their skills learnt in Designing Legal Expert Systems. But once they start articling, the opportunity to do this ends. Not only is this a problem for students who are interested in starting a career in legal tech because they’ll likely later have to re-learn a lot of their skills and won’t have a chance to further develop them for a year, but also because skills like this are increasingly becoming in demand and time is “of the essence”. A year may not seem like a long time, but it’s enough time to lose passion, skill and opportunity in an area that is on the brink of exploding.

To be clear, I’m not an advocate of the idea that law students and lawyers must work over 40 hours per week. I’m not pushing the idea of taking side jobs because I think working anything less than 60 hours per week means you have time to spare. I don’t think there is any reason why a lawyer needs to work more than someone in any other profession. But, if someone is prepared and able to work on passion projects that could help them greatly in the future, they should be given the choice to do so.